1 online resource (xix, 336 pages)

Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, is the only rabbi to have been excommunicated by the Orthodox rabbinical establishment in America. Kaplan was indeed a heretic, rejecting such fundamental Jewish beliefs as the concept of the chosen people and a supernatural God. Although he valued the Jewish community and was a committed Zionist, his primary concern was the spiritual fulfillment of the individual. Drawing on Kaplan's 27-volume diary, Mel Scult describes the development of Kaplan's radical theology in dialogue with the thinkers and writers who mattered to

Includes bibliographical references and index

Excommunications: Kaplan and Spinoza -- Self-reliance: Kaplan and Emerson -- Nationalism and righteousness: Ahad ha-Am and Matthew Arnold -- Universalism and pragmatism: Felix Adler, William James, and John Dewey -- Kaplan and peoplehood: Judaism as a civilization and Zionism -- Kaplan and his God: an ambivalent relationship -- Kaplan's theology: beyond supernaturalism -- Salvation: the goal of religion -- Salvation embodied: the vehicle of mitzvot -- Mordecai the pious: Kaplan and Heschel -- The law: halakhah and ethics -- Kaplan and the problem of evil: cutting the gordian knot -- Appendix: "Thirteen wants" of Mordecai Kaplan reconstructed

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